Oh, and "Jtparker", i build mainly in 2mm thick styrene sheet, and the blockmaterial is renshape/chemiwood/cibatool (different name in most countries).

Actually i forgot to mention in tonights update on the RPF that i ordered a polyurethane rubber for casting real rubber wheels. Should have it latest on wednesday. Now all i need to finish, is a proto wheel .. pics of that soon..

Was thinking just the same thing today. Here goes, summary of the current status on the build, in pics:

turret parts

new nose left/right side

drivers door closeup

body with old styrene sides on nose

More to come this week. My schedule is to have at least some parts in silicone this week. Started building the mold jacket for the upper body, ordered an extra batch of silicone rubber. Although i have the necessary polyurethane rubber for casting rubber wheels, i haven't had time yet to test them.

I finished the left side, in between the wheels. This is were the engine service hatches and exhausts were. Did the research, cut the parts and put them together.

Inserts for lower exhaust. This is placed behind the holes in the part, so it becomes deeper. The ridges allow for positioning of the custom etched grilles and an extra ridge over that.

Overall view minus the top panel.

Overall view with top panel in place. The top panel will be machined from both the front and back, from styrene, for each kit. The back then allows for perfect placing of etchings and parts like the propeller.

Did the wheel hub. The outer edge has two ridges instead of one. Haven't seen anyone do that yet. As accurate as i can. I kept the parts seperate so i could play with the depth of the parts in relation to each other. Difficult to make out in the pics, but the middle ridge has an elliptical profile, the outer one a circular one.

And the parts put together. This will hit silicone tomorrow, allow with the first other small parts.

Machined the inside of the nose corners, so they would become lighter, and would easily fit the existing styrene frame. Machined the sidelights and door outline. Here's the inside view

Outside view.

Outside view with door in place. The dooropening is 1.5mm offset. On the back of the door is a piece of styrene that fits perfectly inside the dooropening. The kit will have a seperate door with working hinges, so you can play around with it of you want. No interior though.

Some of the details for the engine service hatches. The boxes fit behind the holes in the larger panel in the picture. The left box has a fan (not present yet), which is not dead center, it's lower. The hub of the fan is in between the boxes, and fits a hole in the box. The two tiny brass pieces are the start of the hinges of the drivers door.

Next to that on wednesday i have the etchings and the drytransfers for the enitre run going out to my suppliers, and will have them back monday or tuesday. Also wednesday the new 3d file for the tyres (and some of the greeblies on the rear deck) goes out to be sla'ed (stereolithographed). Back on monday. Was making that out of seperate pieces, but was a pain to finish.

The build is going very fast now. Tomorrow sees the main access door, greeblies on top of the nose, the frame in front of the main light and the start of the armor blocks on the top.

I'll be posting in the For sale section from tomorrow with an introduction to the kit, parts breakdown, price and whatever other info that might be useful.